After sinking, some wonder: Is cruising safe?

The Costa Concordia disaster – The Costa Concordia struck rocks on January 13 and turned on its side off the Italian island of Giglio.

Hide Caption

1 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – A bench from the cruise liner is seen on the shore on January 20, a week after the ship ran aground. More than 30 people from eight countries -- both crew and passengers -- died.

Hide Caption

2 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Divers continue the search for the remaining missing people in January.

Hide Caption

3 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Italian police escort the captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner, Francesco Schettino, on January 14. Prosecutors accused the captain of piloting the ship too fast to allow him to react to dangers, causing the shipwreck, according to legal papers.

Hide Caption

4 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Firemen search for missing people in and around the partially submerged Costa Concordia cruise ship on January 16.

Hide Caption

5 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Firemen work on the Costa Concordia cruise ship on January 16. The captain may have made "significant" errors that led to wreck, the cruise line said.

Hide Caption

6 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Military rescuers patrol next to the listing Costa Concordia on January 15. A spiraling water slide can be seen on the deck.

Hide Caption

7 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Boats patrol near the Costa Concordiay as divers continue the search for missing people days after the accident.

Hide Caption

8 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Rescuers search the Costa Concordia on January 15.

Hide Caption

9 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Emergency services work from the island of Giglio, near where the cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground.

Hide Caption

10 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – The ship had a breach on the hull about 90 meters (300 feet) long, according to Officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno.

Hide Caption

11 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – On January 14, crowds prepare to leave the island of Giglio, where passengers were staying after the ship ran aground.

Hide Caption

12 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – The Concordia, built in 2006, was on a Mediterranean cruise from Rome with stops in Savona, Cagliari and Palermo, Italy; Barcelona and Palma de Mallorca, Spain; and Marseille, France.

Hide Caption

13 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Passengers arrive at Porto Santo Stefano, Italy, after being evacuated from the ship.

Hide Caption

14 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – The Costa Concordia was sailing a few hundred meters off the rocky Tuscan coastline of the island of Giglio.

Hide Caption

15 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Italian police assist in the rescue after the cruise ship ran aground near the island.

Hide Caption

16 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – The huge ship, nearly the length of three football fields, was carrying about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members when it rammed into a bed of rocks around 9:45 p.m.

Hide Caption

17 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Passengers arrive on land after they were rescued. There was chaos as passengers scrambled to get off the ship.

Hide Caption

18 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – Evacuation efforts started promptly but were made "extremely difficult" by the position of the listing ship.

Hide Caption

19 of 20

Photos: The Costa Concordia disaster20 photos

The Costa Concordia disaster – The Costa Concordia cruise ship is pictured in March 2009 in Civitavecchia, Rome's tourist port.

Story highlights

Accidents such as this one are an extremely rare occurrence, cruise industry group says

Cruise expert: Chaos may have been caused in part by communication problems

Psychologist: Industry will have to communicate how safe cruising actually is

The possibility of sinking is the last thing you want to think about when booking a carefree vacation at sea.

Yet colorful ads depicting people having the time of their lives on cruise ships are now competing with frightening footage of Costa Concordia passengers, some still elegantly dressed for dinner, on a desperate quest to escape the ship.

"This isn't some tugboat off Italy. This is a very modern cruise ship, very similar to ships that are currently in the Caribbean," said Fran Golden, a cruise expert and contributor for Budget Travel.

"I don't think anybody could predict that a modern, beautiful cruise ship only six years old would hit a rock and sink," she told CNN's Early Start.

So it's no wonder some travelers may be questioning just how safe cruising is.

"It sure does frighten me, a longtime cruiser," wrote Carolyn Spencer Brown, editor-in-chief of CruiseCritic.com, about how quickly things went wrong on the Concordia. "This was a systemic failure that should rock the cruise line to its core."

But the cruise industry says there's very little to worry about, despite the incident.

The group called Friday's incident a terrible tragedy, but asked travelers to keep it in perspective.

"Accidents such as this one are an extremely rare occurrence in the cruise industry, and cruising continues to be one of the safest means of travel among all types of vacationing," the association said on its website.

Modern cruise ships have sophisticated equipment designed to keep them on course, steer them away from bad weather and keep them steady in rough seas.

Some recent examples include the Louis Majesty, part of the Greece-based Louis Cruise Lines. In 2010, two passengers were killed and 14 were injured when 26-foot waves crashed into the ship off northeast Spain.

In 2007, the Sea Diamond, a Greek cruise ship that was carrying 1,156 passengers and 391 crew members, sank off the Aegean island of Santorini after slamming into a volcanic reef. Two passengers were reported missing after the incident and were never found.

To know how to survive an emergency, cruise passengers are required by law to attend a safety briefing within 24 hours of embarkation. Costa Cruises says most passengers on board the Costa Concordia took part in an evacuation drill.

During a typical muster drill, the ship sounds the signals that would call people to their lifeboat stations so they know what to do if there is something wrong.

But passenger Benji Smith said the safety briefing was more of a "sales pitch" for shore excursions. Others, who embarked at Civitavecchia, about an hour's train ride from Rome, had yet to have the briefing.

Nancy Lofaro, a passenger from New Rochelle, New York, said the drill was scheduled for Saturday, a day after the disaster.

Lofaro also said it appeared the crew didn't really know what to do during the emergency.

The confusion may have been caused in part by communication problems, Golden said. Unlike ships cruising in the Caribbean, Costa gets passengers from many countries and thus passengers speak different languages.

"I can only imagine the chaos of trying to communicate to passengers from, maybe, eight different languages how to get off the ship," Golden said.

The incident underscores the importance of safety drills and paying attention to them, she added.

"People go on a cruise, and they think they're in this protected wonderland, and the reality is you always need to have safety in the forefront of your thinking," Golden said.

"I've seen passengers go to the life boat drills and the crew do honest efforts to have you learn how to put on your life vest, and meanwhile, people are trying to get drinks and take photos."

Crew training in emergency response also is key.

A lot of the training is done by the cruise lines themselves based on international maritime standards, Golden said.

The Coast Guard inspects foreign-flagged cruise ships in U.S. waters twice a year, studying the competency of the crew during fire and abandon-ship drills, said Cmdr. Buddy Reams, chief of the U.S. Coast Guard's Cruise Ship National Center of Expertise.

Still, no matter how many safety and training protocols are in place, the image of a submerged Costa Concordia will stay burned in people's minds when they decide if they're going to take a cruise, said Jonathan Bricker, a psychologist at the University of Washington.

To prevent any decline in bookings, the cruise industry will have to communicate how safe cruising actually is, he added.

That said, "The vast majority of people who are planning to take a cruise are probably still going to take the cruise. And they're going to be fine," Bricker said.